Analysis Of The Paxton Boys Massacre At Conestoga

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Race soon became a tool for placing individuals on one side or the other of those boundaries. Boundaries instead of accommodation-binding communities became the norm. Instead of community-based strategies for negotiating alliances and coexistence, Native Americans and Euro-American settlers turned to once distrusted confederations or empires for support and protection. The Paxton Boys’ massacre at Conestoga in December 1763 is often used by scholars of Pennsylvania history to legitimize the creation of racial identities. The massacres committed by these frontier vigilantes are still used as the most prolific example of the collapse of Indian-white relations in Pennsylvania as well as the rise of racial attitudes in the backcountry population.

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